A Quote by Shooter Jennings

I don't think I thought I was going to go into music, and I don't think it hit me until I was 13 or 14, and then I was gone. Just like that. At that point, there was nothing else that could keep my attention.
When I turned 12 or 13 years old, even as a dad, you can't make a kid play anymore, but up until that point, he pushed me to keep playing, and when I turned 13, I didn't want to do anything else. He was just there with me at the cage every day because I wanted him to go with me and throw to me and work on what I needed to work on.
Right from the start with music, I was like, 'I'm just going to do this, and I don't care about anything else. There are certain things you have to give up, even at 13, 14: your Friday and Saturday nights, having a regular girl, lots of things like that. I look at Amy Winehouse, and I think perhaps she just don't want to do it that much.
We thought I was going to go to Boston at 14, and then Miami took me at 13. So I got blessed to come here, instead of there.
And the rules were so clear, you could not deviate from that all. And I think it especially damaged my sisters because there was nothing they could do to get my father's attention, to win his approval. They could not play sports. They could not do these other things. They could not be tough. They could not be macho. And so I think they suffered just from sheer neglect if nothing else.
It's funny, because when you're younger you're in a rush to be 18 or 21 or whatever. But then you hit 30. And now, the days go by like hours. You think, 40, man, this could be the halfway point. It could be the three-quarters point, you know? Who knows?
I don't really date. I have a weird vision of relationships because my parents have known each other since second grade, and they got married right out of college. I've always thought that's what it's supposed to be like, and if it's not, then I don't want to waste my time on it. Even when I was 14, I was like, 'I'm not gonna marry this person. What's the point of doing it?' It's not me being naive. I just know what it's supposed to be like, and I think until I feel that, I cannot be bothered.
If you're in music, you're in music, and if you're in music you just want to keep making records and playing. That's what it's about, isn't it? At least, that's what I always thought it was about, anyway. I don't think I could bear years and years off. Perhaps in me older, older age, maybe I will, for physical reasons. But to me you've always got to keep proving yourself. I never want to just sit on me laurels. You have to keep forging, to prove yourself to yourself. I always think, every time I start a record, this could be the best thing I've ever done.
I used to have to force myself to go, okay, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing and then all of a sudden a thought of some where could come in. Now I can just focus and not think about anything. So, yeah, I guess I do that a lot.
The only thing that seemed to me I could do in such a way that no one else could was acting. I thought, I can be a doctor, but there's going to be someone else who is just as good or better. I can be a lawyer, which I still sometimes think I would love to be, but I think there's someone who can do it just as good or better.
I lived in Hollywood and, ironically, I didn't know you could just go out and get an agent and go on auditions and try and become an actor, I thought it was like a Masonic thing, like a blood line you had to belong to – until I was 13. Then I realised what you had to do. It is the one thing I know I want to do for the rest of my life.
While I was growing up, I believed I could do anything I could think of. So the challenge was always to keep thinking - to get to where I wanted to be and then to think of somewhere else to go.
The world was not supportive. They look at me as a joke for 13 to 14 years until I could prove feasibility; then I had competitors. Those that laughed at me became my competitors.
I watched movies, obviously, just like anybody else, but there was nothing to make me think, 'I'm going to go to L.A. and become a movie star,' or anything like that.
I have a notebook that I take with me everywhere. I free-write in it when there are situations that I know I can write a song about. I will just start writing everything that I can think of while trying to write some things that are kind of poetic or sound like they could be in a song. Then, after the music is written, I go back and look at my subjects to see which one I think woud go with what music. Then, I formulate it into a melody and get the song.
I think that's coming just like anything else. I don't think that it's just going to be 3-D. I think that 2-D is going to be around forever. I think that we'll go back and forth.
I was like 13, 14 years old. I had a Rock Band mic, and I used to record music and put it on YouTube and DatPiff. Then I started getting to producing my own music because I didn't want to keep rapping on beats I was getting on SoundClick.
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